Author: Searle, Thomas
Biography:
SEARLE, Thomas (1791-1850: ancestry.co.uk)
There is no record of his origins in Dissenting or modern genealogical sources. He may have been the son of Jeremiah Searle and his wife Martha Keate, who had married at St. John’s, Hackney, London, in 1776 and baptised several children there. An acrostic in Esther (1834) on Thomas Searle Wonfor probably indicates a family connection, possibly a nephew. His (presumptive) sister Hester/Esther Searle was baptised along with her brother Richard at St. John’s in 1790, with Jeremiah and Martha as parents. There is no record for Thomas Searle but there might be many reasons for that. He was educated at nearby Hoxton Academy. He was “set apart” (or ordained) on 8 July 1818 for Church Lane Independent, Banbury, Oxfordshire, where he had previously been Master of the Presbyterian School from 1811. It was later described as a Classical and Commercial Academy; he seems to have relinquished it in 1824. He remained as minister in Banbury until 1826, during which time he married Sarah Rowe on 8 June 1819 at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, London, and had the first five of ten children in Banbury. He was then variously minister (and probably schoolmaster) at Carlton and King’s Sutton, (1826-29), Stony Stratford (1829-45?)--both in Buckinghamshire--Hornchurch, Essex (1846-48), and Prescot, Lancashire (1848-50) where he died of consumption, aged 59, on 20 June 1850. His wife Sarah predeceased him in 1848. He published the two works listed here with prefaces written at Banbury and Stony Stratford in 1822 and 1834 respectively. Other works included A Companion for the Season of Maternal Solicitude (1833) and The Sick Visitor’s Assistant and Companion for the Afflicted (1834), both written at Stony Stratford. (ancestry.co.uk 16 Nov. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 16 Nov. 2022; OJ 12 June 1819, 6 Jan. 1821, 8 Jan. 1825; 26 Aug. 1848; Benjamin Nightingale, Lancashire Nonconformity [1892], 4: 161; GRO death cert; Surman Index) AA